Chapter 11: The Forsworn Path

The journey from the Hollow Reaches was one of silence. Even Selene, ever ready with a quip, kept her thoughts to herself. The lands they now passed through were barren, forgotten by gods and men alike. Gray hills rolled like broken waves. Trees stood petrified—frozen mid-sway, as if something had screamed the world into stillness long ago.

Aelthaea walked at Rael's side, her gaze fixed on the horizon. "The next seal lies beneath the ruins of Varentha. A city lost in the First Sundering."

Rael nodded. "A place even the Pantheon abandoned."

"Two days' march if we travel unseen," Caelaris added, glancing over her shoulder. "Three if we meet resistance."

Rael looked to the horizon, eyes narrowed. "We won't avoid resistance. Not anymore."

They moved swiftly under the cloak of twilight, avoiding the shattered stone roads once carved by divine architects. By the second night, the air had grown colder, the silence heavier. Birds no longer sang. No beasts stirred.

Selene walked beside Rael, unusually quiet.

"Do you think she can see us?" she finally asked.

Rael didn't answer at first. "She dreams. And dreaming gods often see more than waking ones."

Ahead, the ruins of Varentha crested the final hill—sunken towers half-buried in ash, bridges broken by divine wrath, and monuments long since eroded by time and memory.

But above it all was the dome.

A field of translucent energy hovered over the heart of the ruins. Lightning slithered across its surface, drawn to invisible runes that pulsed like heartbeats.

Selene let out a low whistle. "Divine ward. Strong, old, and likely insane."

Aelthaea's face hardened. "That's not a ward. That's a prison pretending to be a monument."

Rael stepped forward. "We go in."

Crossing the dome was like walking through a veil of memory. Each step felt heavier, like trudging through your own past. Images flickered—glimpses of battles, betrayals, pain not their own. But Rael's presence parted the veil.

The others followed. The dome hissed as Aelthaea passed through, resisting her entry.

"Whatever's in here doesn't like me," she muttered.

They reached the central plaza where the cathedral stood. Half of it had collapsed; the other half leaned, split by a divine lance frozen mid-fall, suspended in the air like a blade above judgment.

Rael approached the door.

It opened before he touched it.

Inside, a hush fell. The ruined cathedral smelled of dust and burnt incense. Mosaics once depicting gods had been defaced. The altar had been shattered, and black veins of rootlike tendrils pulsed beneath the floor.

Rael knelt beside the seal—a circle of symbols carved into stone and bound by broken chains. It was cracked open from above.

"Someone shattered it," he said.

A whisper curled through the air.

"No. It was offered."

A figure stepped from the shadows—a man in red robes, his face hidden behind a mask of bone. He bowed low.

"I am Vorthas. Herald of the Forsworn."

Rael stood slowly. "Speak. Carefully."

Vorthas made no move to draw a weapon. "We did not break the seal in rebellion. We gave it willingly to Her—the Womb who Remembers."

Aelthaea's voice sharpened. "You gave Her power?"

"We gave Her freedom," Vorthas replied. "The seals were not prisons. They were tethers. Anchors. Now that the first has broken, the others rise in resonance."

Rael stepped forward. "And what does she promise you?"

"Nothing. That is why we follow. No promises, no chains. Only the truth—that the Pantheon's reign was never just, and their silence now is our liberation."

The floor beneath them pulsed.

Rael drew his blade. "You woke something you do not understand."

"We do not need to understand," Vorthas said with reverence. "Only to serve the undoing."

Roots erupted from beneath the shattered altar.

Rael shouted, "Fall back!"

The cathedral walls trembled. A cocoon rose from the earth—dark, pulsing, its outer shell covered in glyphs that shifted as if alive. Unlike the one beneath the Hollow Reaches, this one was aware.

It pulsed in time with a heartbeat.

A face pressed against its shell—not human, not divine, but something that radiated both youth and age. One golden eye opened. The room dropped in temperature.

Selene cried out. "It's speaking—without sound."

Aelthaea stumbled. "The voice… it's ancient. It's everywhere."

A whisper cut through their minds:

We are the ones who watched the gods rise and fall. We are the hunger that remains after salvation is devoured. We are the silence between names.

Rael stepped closer, golden light spiraling around his fists. "You remember the gods?"

The cocoon pulsed.

We ended them.

From above, the suspended divine lance cracked, releasing arcs of power that rained down like lightning.

Caelaris deflected a bolt with her shield, only to be blasted backward. Selene slashed at the roots now crawling across the cathedral floor.

Rael stood his ground. "Then you remember fear."

He unleashed his aura.

Golden-black flame erupted from his form, slamming into the cocoon. The shell cracked. A scream—not of pain, but delight—rattled the chamber.

"I've seen enough," Aelthaea shouted. "This one is ready to emerge."

Rael turned to Vorthas. "You brought her here?"

Vorthas smiled beneath his mask. "We only opened the door. She walks where she wills."

The dome above them cracked. Light poured in. The battlefield that was once Varentha began to twist—streets spiraling into sigils, walls folding into themselves.

"We're leaving!" Rael commanded.

They fled the collapsing cathedral as the cocoon shattered fully. The voice that followed them was laughter—low, feminine, and eternal.

Outside, the city began to fold in on itself. Buildings collapsed not from force, but obedience. A throne of stone and vine rose in the city's heart, awaiting the one who would claim it.

The Womb had reached the surface.

They didn't look back.